Ginger, Galangal and Strawberries

I emptied out the ginger pot today, it has been growing for two years now and I needed to stock up on it in my freezer and let it regrow again. Actually I have two pots and ended up with a great deal of ginger for cooking. For something so easy to grow it always amazes me that people actually buy it. Especially in this area as it flourishes in subtropical.

Every year the ginger dies down, which is why I keep it in a pot so I know where it is. This is the quantity I got from the two of them.

Fresh Ginger

   

I chose two decent pieces with nice roots and replanted back into some fresh soil.

The ginger, once scrubbed clean, I wrap in alfoil and place in a zip lock bag and put in the freezer. It can be peeled but I just scrub it really well. To use I grate the frozen ginger as needed during the year.

The galangal on the other hand doesn't die down, and usually I pick it fresh from the garden, but I needed to make it a bit smaller as it was getting in the way where I wanted to plant some potato tubers that started to grow in the kitchen,(I know, you should only plant seed potatoes, but who can throw them out) so I chopped off a large bit of galangal plant to make room. I could dry it but as I don't use it very often will probably give it away.



 One of a couple of clumps of Galangal  growing

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The Strawberry Tower I recently wrote about, has really started producing lots of strawberries and they are just beginning to turn red. I am very pleased with it as I wasn't sure it would work, especially not knowing what plant would produce fruit.



Top of Tower



Covered in Bird Netting

 A new Master's Hardware Store has just opened up locally and they had many varieties of strawberries for sale, something we are not used to in this area, and  I couldn't resist buying 3 plants of 2 varieties because they had pink flowers instead of white, and have planted them in hanging baskets.

Dark Pink Flowers "Juliette"

Pale Pink Flowers "Pink"

The weather is certainly warming up for Spring, and I find myself spending more time in the garden gearing up to plant vegetables. John is setting up a self watering system for me, and I am changing the front beds to run north south, in a more regimental way to cater for the drippers. We have no front lawn its all garden and paths, but I  will write about that later.

Pierre De Ronsard

Till next time.